Elizabeth Bowen:

An Inventory of Her Collection at the Harry Ransom Center

Creator

Bowen, Elizabeth,
1899-1973

Title

Elizabeth Bowen Collection
1923-1975

Dates:

1923-1975

Extent

13 boxes (5.42 linear
feet), 1 galley folder

Abstract

Irish writer Elizabeth
Bowen brought a painter's sensitivity to her creative writing, incorporating
her memories and experiences into short stories and novels. Her collection is
composed largely of works and correspondence and reflects Bowen's long and
productive literary career. A small number of legal and financial papers are
also present.

Elizabeth Bowen was the only child born to Henry Cole Bowen and Florence
Colley Brown. Though the place of birth on June 7, 1899, was Dublin, her family
home was Bowen's Court, near Kildorrey, County Cork, Ireland. Because of her
father's law practice, the family divided their residency between Dublin and
Bowen's Court. Elizabeth enjoyed a normal Anglo-Irish childhood with her
parents until her father suffered a nervous breakdown in 1905 when the pattern
changed. Her father was hospitalized off and on for the following few years
and, following the advice of his physician, Elizabeth and her mother moved to
England to stay with various aunts. As a child Elizabeth insulated herself from
stress by paying close attention to her childhood world of the imagination and
the part "place" played in her life. A stammar in
her speech developed at this time which stayed with her for the rest of her
life. Her father recovered by the time she was twelve, but before the family
was fully reunited her mother, diagnosed with cancer, died when Elizabeth was
thirteen. Maternal aunts, who took over her care, arranged for her to attend a
boarding school, Downe House, in Kent, from 1914 to 1917. This school played a
significant role in her development as a young woman and as a writer with its
emphasis on limiting display of one's feelings and its strong encourgement of
sociability at meals. Later Elizabeth was known as a considerate and successful
hostess.

Elizabeth enjoyed painting and drawing as a child and in 1918 studied at
the London County Council School of Art but withdrew after two terms because of
what she considered her limited ability. She was to make use of this painter's
sensitivity in her literary work, however. She had done a great deal of
creative writing while at Downe House, mainly short stories, and decided this
was her calling. She set about incorporating her memories and experiences into
her fiction. Rose Macaulay, a friend of the headmistress of Downe House, gave
her guidance and introduced her to editors, publishers, literary agents, and
others who could help a fledgling writer.

Elizabeth's first volume of short stories,
Encounters, was published in 1923, the year
she married Alan Charles Cameron, an assistant secretary for education in
Northampton. Upon his promotion to Secretary of Education for the city of
Oxford she found the intellectual atmosphere of the city conducive to her
further development as a writer. Her second volume of stories,
Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926), was
followed by her first novel,
The Hotel (1927). During her years at Oxford
Elizabeth published her second novel,
The Last September (1929), and two
collections of short fiction,
Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929) and
The Cat Jumps and Other Stories (1934), as
well as three additional novels,
Friends and Relations (1931),
To the North (1932), and
The House in Paris (1935).

In 1935 Elizabeth and Alan moved to Regent's Park in London, which
furthered her career. She began writing reviews for the
Tatler and in 1938 her novel, the
Death of the Heart, was published, followed
by
Look at All Those Roses: Short Stories in
1941. World War II played a dominant role in her writing as well as in her
life. She became an Air Raid Precautions warden which brought her into contact
with people she would not have known otherwise and opened up new avenues of
interest for her writing. Also she and Alan often experienced the effects of
the bombing raids on their own home in Regent's Park. Two of her works from
this period, her novel
The Heat of the Day (1949) and
The Demon Lover, and Other Stories (1945),
are considered by some to be among the best records of London during the
war.

After the war Elizabeth continued to write short stories and essays, and
produced three additional novels,
A World of Love (1955),
The Little Girls (1964), and
Eva Trout; or, Changing Scenes (1968) for
which she received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1970. She wrote
essays and reviews for the
Tatler, the
Cornhill Magazine, the
New Statesman and Nation, the
New Republic, the
New York Times Magazine, Harpers, and the
Saturday Review of Literature, among others,
and became associate editor of
London Magazine. After her husband's death
in 1952 she spent part of every year in the United States lecturing and working
as a writer in residence. Elizabeth Bowen died of lung cancer at her home at
Hythe in Kent on February 22, 1973.

Manuscripts and correspondence make up the bulk of the Elizabeth Bowen
Collection, 1923-1975, and reflect Bowen's literary career. The material is
organized into four series: I. Works, 1926-1975 (9.5 boxes), II.
Correspondence, 1923-1969 (2 boxes), III. Financial and Legal Papers, 1927-1947
(1 box), and IV. Miscellaneous, 1951-1967 (.5 box). Within each series the
material is arranged alphabetically by title or author. This collection was
previously accessible only through a card catalog, but has been re-cataloged as
part of a retrospective conversion project.

The Works Series consists of holograph drafts, typescripts, galley
proofs, notes, and fragments of novels, stories, articles, essays, radio
broadcasts, lectures, reviews, and translations. The Center has manuscript
holdings for the majority of Bowen's novels, including
Eva Trout (1968),
Friends and Relations (1931),
The Heat of the Day (1948),
The Hotel (1927),
The House in Paris (1935),
The Last September (1929),
The Little Girls (1963),
To the North (1932), and
A World of Love (1955). Collections of short
stories include
Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926), and
Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929); in
addition, there are manuscripts for numerous short stories which were published
separately in various periodicals; and for unfinished and unpublished works.
Manuscripts for her nonfiction works include
English Novelists (1942),
The Shelbourne (1951), and
A Time in Rome (1960). Autobiographical
works include
Bowen's Court (1942),
Pictures and Conversations (1975), published
posthumously, and
Seven Winters (1962). The radio broadcasts
were mainly for the BBC on a variety of topics ranging from literary figures,
books, and places, to plays she adapted from her stories for radio.

The Correspondence Series consists principally of letters regarding
Bowen's literary work. Outgoing letters occupy two folders and were written
chiefly to her literary agents at Curtis Brown; to various publications such as
Blarney Magazine, Contact Publications, the
Cork Examiner, and
Everybody's; and to the Golden Cockerel
Press; also to literary friends Joe Ackerley, Daniel George, Glyn Jones, and
Grover Smith. Correspondence from Bowen can also be found with incoming
correspondence as she had the habit of responding on the verso of incoming
letters.

Series III, Financial and Legal Papers, includes royalty statements, tax
records, and lists of memoranda of agreement with various publishing companies
for publishing rights to Bowen's works. The small Miscellaneous Series contains
two typescripts of works by Eudora Welty,
"The Bride of the Innisfallen" and
"The Wand."

Elsewhere in the Center are eight Vertical File folders which contain
newspaper and periodical clippings of articles written by and about Bowen,
reviews of her works, and a slim envelope containing items removed from her
books, and two scrapbooks of press clippings. There is one photograph of Bowen
in the Literary File of the Photography Department. Correspondence and
manuscripts relating to the publication of
Elizabeth Bowen: A Bibliography by J'Nan M.
Sellery and William O. Harris are found in the Ransom Center Archives.